The News You May Have Missed: December 2025

You Can Take the Boy Out of Chicago…

The Pope may be spreading positivity to everybody, but one Chicago Cubs fan was on the receiving end of some playful papal negativity from the most recognizable Chicago White Sox fan in the world. When Leo XIV was in the popemobile waving to those gathered in St. Peter’s Square who’d come to see him this October, someone yelled, “Go Cubs!” In response, the Pope shouted in Spanish, ¡Han perdido! (“They lost!”). The Cubs had just lost in the National League Divisional Series to the Milwaukee Brewers, who advanced to the National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Nevertheless, the Cubs enjoyed much more success this season than the Sox, finishing with 92 wins, while their crosstown American League rivals had only 60 — against 102 losses. Leo, a Chicago native, has been a lifelong Sox fan, and even on the papal throne his fandom hasn’t faded. This summer he was seen wearing a White Sox cap along with the traditional white papal cassock (Fox News, Oct. 15).

Our Lady of Coexistence?

A new metro stop is set to open in Tehran called the “Virgin Mary” station. Located near St. Sarkis Armenian Cathedral, its arched concourse and dome feature religious frescoes and artwork honoring the Blessed Virgin. A public facility in Iran named after the mother of Jesus surprised some, while others noted that Shi’ite culture venerates Mary. Still others see it as an attempt to whitewash the Islamic Republic’s repression of religious minorities, including Armenian Christians. The Iranian Embassy in Yerevan, Armenia, described the station as “a beautiful sign of coexistence between Iranians and the Armenian community.” Even if the metro station is a symbolic gesture, it’s also a reminder of a harsher reality: Christians in Iran face arrest, torture, and imprisonment for their faith. Last year, an Iranian judge sentenced a man to ten years in prison for engaging in “illegal Christian activities.” According to Article 18, a U.K.-based nonprofit advocating for persecuted Iranian Christians, 166 believers were arrested in 2023 for owning too many Bibles (Catholic News Agency, Oct. 20).

Uncertain Trumpet

A popular South African Protestant preacher received backlash for falsely predicting the dates of the “rapture” — not once but thrice. Pastor Joshua Mhlakela initially said he’d received a divine vision that the Feast of Trumpets — a biblical reference to the end of the world — would take place on September 23 or 24, 2025, aligned with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. When that did not come to pass, Mhlakela blamed it on a discrepancy between the Gregorian and Julian calendars. Accordingly, he revised the dates to October 6-7, which he said were final. “The 7th and 8th of October is the real Feast of the Trumpets,” he said. “I’m a billion percent sure.” When it didn’t occur on those dates, Mhlakela claimed he had a dream that on October 16 or 17 “the church would be raptured.” The “delay,” he said, was God’s way of “testing the hearts of people in the world.” When the rapture didn’t occur on those dates either, many called him a “false prophet”; others called him a “fool” (The South African, Oct. 24).